Users of communications systems, such as cellular and wireless telephones or personal digital assistant devices (PDAs), may require an accurate estimation of time connected to a provider, or usage time. Cellular phone users, for example, may be given a monthly ration of usage time minutes and consequently do not want to exceed the time ration. The providers of cellular communications calling plans, however, do not typically disclose a real-time count of usage time to their users.
The real-time count of usage time may afford the user knowledge of how many minutes they have consumed in the allotted time ration. In addition, the real-time count could be used in conjunction with calling plan parameters (i.e. time and day of the call, peak or off-peak call, incoming versus outgoing call, etc . . . ) to estimate call billing and more accurately depict usage time counts. Since providers do not typically disclose the real-time count, an effort has been made to estimate the usage time within the communications device.
Cellular telephones typically provide a simple built-in timer that indicates the duration of a call and the total usage time since the timer was last reset. These simple timers do not allow the user to track usage of certain calls that may have associated calling plan parameters or rates offered by the provider. Therefore, several strategies have been developed to attempt accurate estimation of usage time that takes the calling plan parameters into account. On the other hand, the current strategies have failed to utilize several key calling plan parameters into their usage time estimates.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,198,915 B1 issued Mar. 6, 2001 to McGregor et al. is an example of a mobile phone with internal accounting. The invention provides a mobile phone unit with accounting capabilities capable of real-time call debiting to account for the billing parameters of the unit operated in a multi zone network. The accounting system includes a complex billing algorithm with a multiple factor accounting protocol to account for local charges, roaming charges when the mobile phone unit moves from one zone to another, long distance charges, international charges, and surcharges. The algorithm is stored within the phone unit, together with a rate schedule that may be updated periodically by the provider.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,861 issued Nov. 4, 1997 to Lewis et al. is an example of an apparatus and method for monitoring cellular telephone usage. The invention provides a small, wireless, battery operated monitoring apparatus installed on a cellular telephone in close proximity to a telephone antenna. The monitoring device monitors telephone usage by detecting and tracking radio frequency signal transmissions from the antenna to a base station. The monitoring device includes a microprocessor that monitors telephone usage, and generates statistical information indicative of telephone usage. In an alternative embodiment, the monitoring device may be incorporated into the circuitry of the cellular telephone. The device may be capable of reporting cellular telephone usage in a number of categories including total connect time, peak time used, off-peak time used, unused peak and off-peak time remaining.
In summary, providers of communications device service do not typically disclose real-time counts of usage time to their users. The described and other strategies may provide reasonable call usage estimation. The current strategies, however, do not utilize several key calling plan parameters and, thus, may not provide accurate and complete usage time estimates. A superior method of estimating telephone usage time would accurately count call usage time while accounting for the key calling plan parameters. Therefore, it would be desirable to achieve a strategy for tracking communications usage time that overcomes the aforementioned and other disadvantages.